xref: /csrg-svn/usr.bin/finger/finger.1 (revision 43693)
1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
2.\" All rights reserved.
3.\"
4.\" %sccs.include.redist.man%
5.\"
6.\"     @(#)finger.1	6.10 (Berkeley) 06/24/90
7.\"
8.Dd
9.Dt FINGER 1
10.Os BSD 4
11.Sh NAME
12.Nm finger
13.Nd user information lookup program
14.Sh SYNOPSIS
15.Nm finger
16.Op Fl lmsp
17.Ob
18.Ar user
19.Op \&@host
20\&...
21.Oe
22.Sh DESCRIPTION
23The
24.Nm finger
25command has two basic output formats providing essentially the same
26information.
27.Pp
28Options are:
29.Tp Fl s
30.Nm Finger
31displays the user's login name, real name, terminal name and write
32status (as a ``*'' after the terminal name if write permission is
33denied), idle time, login time, office location and office phone
34number.
35.Pp
36Idle time is in minutes if it is a single integer, hours and minutes
37if a ``:'' is present, or days if a ``d'' is present.
38Login time is displayed as month, day, hours and minutes, unless
39more than six months ago, in which case the year is displayed rather
40than the hours and minutes.
41.Pp
42Unknown devices as well as nonexistent idle and login times are
43displayed as single asterisks.
44.Pp
45.Tp Fl l
46Produces a multi-line format displaying all of the information
47described for the
48.Fl s
49option as well as the user's home directory, home phone number, login
50shell, and the contents of the files
51.Dq Pa .plan
52and
53.Dq Pa .project
54from the user's home directory.
55.Pp
56If idle time is at least a minute and less than a day, it is
57presented in the form ``hh:mm''.
58Idle times greater than a day are presented as ``d day[s]hh:mm''.
59.Pp
60Phone numbers specified as eleven digits are printed as ``+N-NNN-NNN-NNNN''.
61Numbers specified as ten or seven digits are printed as the appropriate
62subset of that string.
63Numbers specified as five digits are printed as ``xN-NNNN''.
64.Pp
65If write permission is denied to the device, the phrase ``(messages off)''
66is appended to the line containing the device name.
67One entry per user is displayed with the
68.Fl l
69option; if a user is logged on multiple times, terminal information
70is repeated once per login.
71.Pp
72.Tp Fl p
73Prevents
74the
75.Fl l
76option of
77.Nm finger
78from displaying the contents of the
79.Dq Pa .plan
80and
81.Dq Pa .project
82files.
83.Pp
84Note that some fields may be missing, in either format, if information
85is not available for them.
86.Tp Fl m
87Prevent matching of
88.Ar user
89names.
90.Ar User
91is usually a login name; however, matching will also be done on the
92users' real names, unless the
93.Fl m
94option is supplied.
95All name matching performed by
96.Nm finger
97is case insensitive.
98.Tp
99.Pp
100If no options are specified,
101.Nm finger
102defaults to the
103.Fl l
104style output if operands are provided, otherwise to the
105.Fl s
106style.
107.Pp
108If no arguments are specified,
109.Nm finger
110will print an entry for each user currently logged into the system.
111.Pp
112.Nm Finger
113may be used to look up users on a remote machine.
114The format is to specify a
115.Ar user
116as
117.Dq Li user@host ,
118or
119.Dq Li @host ,
120where the default output
121format for the former is the
122.Fl l
123style, and the default output format for the latter is the
124.Fl s
125style.
126The
127.Fl l
128option is the only option that may be passed to a remote machine.
129.Sh SEE ALSO
130.Xr chpass 1 ,
131.Xr w 1 ,
132.Xr who 1 ,
133.Xr getpwent 3
134.Sh HISTORY
135.Nm Finger
136appeared in 3 BSD.
137